Toronto-Bound: The Overhead Light In The ComedyBar

One of the two venues for the Toronto Improv festival, last week, was the Comedybar on Bloor Street. (As we drove down Bloor, we all took delight in vomitting up the name of businesses along Bloor, like "Bloor Video" and "Bloor Donuts!" Try saying "bloor" like you're about to vomit and then tack on a business. See? It's fun, even if you're not in Canada.) The ComedyBar was one of the two stages for this year's TIF. The bar itself, was under construction, readying for it's own Grand Opening a month or two from now.

Beyond the fact that it's a subterranean bar, the signage was a hastily tacked-on banner and all of the windows were papered over to discourage people from.. what? Looking in?


International Stinger tries to see inside to the stage for their show - roughly four hours away.

Not exactly a welcoming enviroment to entice the unsuspecting improv audience to step inside and see some imported shenanigans and goings-on!

Once inside, you would see that the bar itself was like any other comedy bar in any other town. Super sexy bartender! Dozens of improvisers trying to get a cheap beer. (At 4 bucks a drink, you could buy your beverage with two "toonies" and still tip with a "loony". We ended up saying crazy shit like that, all weekend long!)



It was Matt Larsen who discovered that the lights next to the bar were unfinished and were shining a bright, un-filtered light straight down in small, tight pools around the bar. Eventually someone would finish placing the fixtures in place and these tiny, mega-beams of light would be gone, but for now, they were there, shining white-hot, electric light in tiny pools.

And so we did what anyone would do in that situation...

We posed for pictures in it.

Matt Larsen went first...



And then Edison got into the swing of things...



I handed the camera off to Matt and he snapped this picture of me...



We called that my "Alex Ross" pose. Lifted straight from "Kingdom Come".

And of course, once we started talking superheroes, some poses just chose themselves...

J.Ben took flight...



And so did Matt...



And so did I...



Want to find the nerds in a room? Tell them that they can look like a character in an Alex Ross picture and watch them flock to it.

Sayjal looked over at us posing in the middle of semi-busy bar and said, "Hey! I want to play!"

And so she did...





Add one hoodie later and you get "Dark Sayjal"...



Edison said, "Oh! We're being villains now?!? Let me try one!"



Kathy, observing us giggling like schoolgirls and shouting "COOL!" after nearly every shot, wandered over and played with us too.

We got her best "Joker-style villain" shot...



And this this sort of wierd, hip-hop rapper busines...
(Matt pointed out the cool shadow that it left on her face.)



And then we got "Vogue-Kathy"...



And finally "Porn Movie Librarian Kathy"...



We also got a nice picture of this little retarded feller. Although nobody caught his name. I think he was with the festival, in some capacity. Sure looks like he's having fun, though, don't it?



It was Ben who later said, "Leave it to a bunch of improvisers to go to a bar and forget to drink, because they were too busy playing with a camera and an overhead light..."

Not to worry, we drank too.



PS. If anyone who reads this blog actually knows Alex Ross, please feel free to forward my picture onto him. If he needs me to pose for Black Adam or Vandal Savage or ... um... Doc Octopus, my email address is right here on the blog! I will do it for free!

Cheers,
Mr.B